


you have infinite possibility

by bibliophilo



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Alternate Universe - Merfolk, Alternate Universe - Princess Tutu, Canonical Character Death, Ficlet Collection, Multi, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2017-12-28 17:19:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/994546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bibliophilo/pseuds/bibliophilo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>i. IV sees a monster he has to have.<br/>ii. Hell is closer than Nasch thinks.<br/>iii. prompt: yuuya/yuuto, dancing<br/>iv. merman!reiji/yuuto, sensual softcore fake cannibalism & awkward first times<br/>v. yuugo + rin, sorted into different hogwarts houses</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ill-advised

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In hindsight, introducing Thomas to horror movies had been an unforgivably foolish mistake. Chris would never admit that it had originally been his idea.

Thomas pauses the movie for the fourteenth time to examine the on-screen monster appraisingly, finally giving a nod of approval. ‘I want this one. Chris, do the science.’

Chris doesn't bother to hide his exasperation or even glance up from his book this time. ‘Thomas, you can’t possibly expect me to make you a card for  _every monster_  in  _every movie you watch_.’ Even as he says it, he realises that that’s  _exactly_  what his brother expects.

He tries again. 'It would be too much of an unfair advantage if you were able to have any monster you wanted, just like that.'

'It's not about the advantage, it's about the aesthetic,' Thomas argues. 'You can use whatever effect limitations you like on the cards, if that's all you're worried about.' He adopts a wheedling tone Chris hasn't heard him use since they were children. 'It's for science, Chris, you  _love_  science.'

Chris finally looks up from his book. Consistence, he reminds himself, is the key. 'Your current deck has driven more than a few grown adults to tears. That should be enough  _fanservice_ , even for you. That's my final decision,' he adds for good measure.

'Chris-'

‘ _Thomas._ ’

Thomas opens his mouth, then shuts it again in the face of the sternest, most implacable frown Chris can muster. The glare Chris gets in return - half irritated and half persuasive and more of a pout, really - only makes him want to laugh.

Thomas scowls as though he knows what he’s thinking and folds his arms huffily, sulking in silence on the couch until Mihael enters the room with a tea tray.

Chris feels just a little bit bad, but he decides that that’s the end of the matter until the next morning, when he wakes from a remarkably peaceful sleep and rolls over onto a severed hank of his own hair.


	2. inferno

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hell is closer than Nasch thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'wouldn't it be great if vector could equip any of the absorbed souls to his soul marionetter'  
> birthday present for an ancient life-ruining loser

_“I’ll wait for you in hell, Ryoga.”_

Back then, he’d thought that would be the last time he ever laid eyes on IV, that it was finally, cruelly over. After all, how could he have properly abandoned his human ties if he’d let him live?

He really ought to have known better.

“What’s wrong, _Nasch_?” Vector drawls heavily, dripping centuries of vitriol into a single syllable, smiling oh so sweetly before pulling yet another grotesque face. Nasch would disregard his own royal breeding to follow Ryoga’s instinct and simply cross the field to punch him on his non-existent mouth, but he’s far too ~~stricken~~ distracted by Vector’s latest abomination.

It is the peak of irony, it seems, that the late puppeteer should be reduced to this. The monster has IV’s vibrant hair and long, slender limbs, but the resemblance ends there. The rest of it is made up of wooden blocks chained together with metal rings and suspended from a cross-tied bar, with only a smooth, still blankness where an ~~insufferable smirk~~ expressive face should be.

It takes all of Nasch’s poise not to fall to his knees; it’s difficult now to suppress speech when he no longer has a mouth to control. _No,_ his mind screams for him. _No, IV, not here, not now!_

IV had understood, in the end; he’d said as much before promising to _wait for you in hell, Ryoga_. But even now Nasch can’t forget what he’s done, which had been the point, really; it doesn’t change the fact that he’s essentially murdered one of Ryoga’s only friends.

_Of course, Nasch had never been IV’s friend, had he?_

Vector’s smug, delighted laughter filters past the turmoil of his mind. Nasch’s guilt is quickly replaced by a sudden surge of fury. The monster is not IV, no matter how much it is clearly meant to resemble him – he of all people should have remembered that IV had not left a corpse. This is the exact same repulsive tactic Vector had used to unsettle Merag before _killing her, damn you to hell, Vector, you murdered my sister!_

Nasch welcomes his own anger, feeds off it, allowing his grief for Merag and Durbe to drown out his guilt. If things go as planned, should he fall he won’t be going alone. One way or another, it ends here.

_Wait for me, Thomas._


	3. étoile

There’s something off about the way he dances. Not _sad_ , exactly, or even melancholy, but a sort of pensive wistfulness, as if the Prince longs for something just out of reach and doesn’t yet realise it himself.

The little bird watching him from its concealed perch in a thick nearby bush does not know this or possess the vocabulary to dress the sentiment in words, but it feels the shape of it nevertheless.

Out of all the slippery patches and false ground near the lake he has chosen a dry spot which allows him firm footing, packed hard enough to support his weight but clear of forest debris, and soft enough to do little more than scrape and bruise should he misjudge a crucial step. This is not out of any sense of self-preservation, nor is it coincidence; he cannot be allowed to come to harm yet. There are greater powers that will need him, in time.

He has learnt a new routine this morning, a daring pas de deux from the company’s repertoire that set the romantic hearts of the junior class aflutter, but he is not reviewing the adagio as his classmates are. For all their youth and talent and optimistic effort, many will one day succumb to illness brought on by overpractice and fatigue, or injury caused by competitiveness and misplaced bravado, or simply the ravages of time. Few of them will ever rise above the corps de ballet, even fewer will make it past soloist, and those who do will not remain prima ballerinas for long before someone younger and less arthritic takes their place.

The Prince does not know this. Perhaps he would not care even if he did. Beyond a deeper shade of melancholy, sympathy has been alien to him for a long time.

The little bird cocks its head as the unsmiling Prince holds his arms curved out from his body, feet changing position so quickly its eyes cannot follow even with keen animal instincts. He performs a series of pivots on one unwavering leg before sinking on bent knees and ascending once more. Against the bird’s expectations he continues to rise, both feet leaving the ground, legs split and knees still bent.

He flies, and he is beautiful.

The whole step is over in two seconds. The Prince lands light as a feather on the packed earth a little way from where he began the pas de chat, a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead. He makes no move to wipe it away.

The curious little bird lifts a wing in crude mimicry of the Prince’s arms now raised above his head, then attempts to extend a stick-thin leg, feathers shifting as a hidden knee straightens with effort. It promptly falls out of its bush.

The rustling and faint thump must have alerted the Prince because he glances up, not hurriedly and not curiously, so unlike the inhabitants of the forest which would flee or attack if startled. He sees the bird for the first time, a dull, muted scarlet strewn with freshly broken leaves; the bird sees now that his eyes are the grey of a storm cloud, oddly flat and without depth. He crouches on the balls of his feet, hands on his knees, and it hops cautiously closer to him.

There is a further rustling a short distance away, clearly caused by someone with no intention of hiding their presence, and a loud, harsh voice calling the same two sounds over and over. The Prince turns his head without urgency, the little bird freezing in fear, and a tall man emerges from a turn in the track.

There is something of the raptor in this man, glaring down at the Prince with the fierce golden gaze of a predator, the scarf at his throat a scarlet stain. He does not look at the bird.

“Yuuto,” he says again. The sound must mean something to the Prince because he unbends from his crouch and gets to his feet, assisted by the hand the predator offers him. The little bird remains perfectly still.

The tall man is making other sounds now, incomprehensible to the bird but for their volume, but it is clear from his expression and gesticulations that he is angry. The Prince does not appear to be in immediate danger, however, looking the man full in the face without fear and making soothing, agreeable noises, and so the bird decides to make good its escape while the predator is distracted.

It flies, and for all the Prince cares for beauty he may consider it beautiful.

It’s not a fairytale first meeting, but it will do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've more or less moved on from ygo so ig I'll gradually put up fics I never posted here/snippets from abandoned aus/drafts unlikely to be finished oops


	4. sins of the flesh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> from [chris's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Luvandia) au where reiji is a merman-turned-human and must regularly consume human flesh to maintain his form
> 
> sorry mom

He can handle a little pain, can’t he? Even a lot of pain, because it’s for Reiji, and he loves Reiji. He _must_.

The juncture between Yuuto’s shoulder and neck feels damp now as well as warm, sticky with Reiji’s condensed breath. He’s breathing a little too hard, perhaps, but that might just be Yuuto’s own nerves talking.

Yuuto’s face flares warm as soft lips trail up the slope of his neck, not tasting the tingling skin so much as _sampling_ it, inhaling his bouquet as if he were a fine wine of as yet unknown vintage. Reiji draws back, deceptively strong hands firm on Yuuto’s upper arms, and fixes him with a steady gaze.

Reiji’s people don’t go in for all that ‘eyes are the window to the soul’ business, Yuuto knows, and even as a human his unchanged violet eyes give nothing away, just as cold and reflective as they were when Yuuto first met him that day on the beach. He has to rely solely on Reiji’s words instead, and trust that Reiji never lies.

“I love you,” Reiji is saying now, soft and clear as a small bell.

“I’m sorry,” Reiji says, and his eyes do not change.

“Forgive me,” Reiji doesn’t say, but Yuuto hears him nevertheless.

“Yes,” Yuuto says.

Reiji closes in. His hair tickles the side of Yuuto’s face as his breath does the bare skin of his shoulder, both smelling of sea salt even here, and Yuuto registers the faintest points of contact as a condemned criminal notes every whorl and nick in the grain of the chopping block. He thinks about Reiji’s eyes.

His eyes are not the only parts Reiji carried over into human form. A predator’s bite punctures skin with ease and sinks further into Yuuto’s flesh – deeper, deeper without end, and his teeth feel a lot bigger than they looked, now when Yuuto’s wishing for them to _stop_ – and a predator’s grip holds him firmly in place, one hand solid on his arm and one securing his head out of the way to expose even more flesh; Yuuto grits his own teeth until his gums beg for mercy in his stead, agonised tears springing unbidden to his eyes.

Reiji finally stills. _That wasn’t so bad_ , Yuuto thinks, blinking fiercely, just as Reiji withdraws, taking a bloody lump of his raw flesh with him, shredded slivers of skin and fibre still stubbornly attached to the remainder of his shoulder. Muscles tear and sinews snap and Reiji meets his eye with Yuuto’s blood bursting from his razor mouth with every slow, deliberate chew, and as a tortured, inhuman scream fills the room and what blood he has left pounds in his ears, Yuuto thinks he might have been wrong after all.

He loves Reiji.

But maybe love isn’t enough.


	5. eos and selene

There she is, two tables across, head bent low over a roll of parchment Yuuto’s showing her. Something scholarly and intellectual, no doubt, and it absorbs all her attention as neither of them so much as glance away even to eat, as if their highbrow house is above such worldly things as hunger or the intensity of Yuugo’s gaze.

Rin’s speaking now, but she’s too far off for Yuugo to try reading her lips. Yuuto’s answer is what brings her head up when Yuugo’s stare does not, the corners of her eyes crinkling as a smile graces her features, soft and gradual as the break of dawn spreading rosy-golden over the land – a land Yuugo grew up in, a land Yuuto has no right to invade.

The metal edges of Yuugo’s spoon bite into flesh as his hands clench involuntarily – Rin always said he tended to act without thinking – and Yuuto leans closer to Rin to point out a passage of interest, forehead almost touching hers.

He rests his hand on her shoulder.

Yuugo’s spoon explodes.

It’s a minor accident, one among many to be expected in the hall of a thousand students still learning to control their magic. The resulting mess is largely brushed off after the original commotion, but with prickling eyes Yuugo sees that Rin is finally looking at him, now that he has mashed potatoes in his right ear and gravy spattered down the front of his robes.

He waits for her to leave Yuuto and come to him, cross the hall with her light step and clean up his mess like she always does, delivering an aggravated lecture he’d gladly take over any the most enlightened professors have to offer.

She doesn’t come.

He wait and waits but she only rolls her eyes and shakes her head, turns on him a smile of fond exasperation and heaves her shoulders in an exaggerated sigh he cannot hear before Yuuto claims her attention once more.

Yuugo remains seated, unsure if he should go to her instead. But why should he? She promised to always look after him. She  _ promised _ .

Serena hands him a paper napkin for his robes and another for his sniffling nose, but it’s not the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part of a larger au with [chris](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Luvandia)


End file.
